A crawl through Norwich’s brewing past
In his weekly The Bar Man column, Jeff Hoyle discusses a fun tour of a fine city’s pubs…
I have been on any number of historic walks in Lynn. Indeed, I have even led a few, the next one on pub history coming up on September 29, but Norwich is new territory and when I saw the Record Office were offering an Archive Ambulation entitled ‘a crawl through Norwich’s brewing past’ it seemed too good to miss.
I was aware of the Norwich brewery, home of such delights as Norwich Mild, Bitter and Starlight, from the time I used to walk past the building on the way down to Carrow Road. No trace of the building now remains, with smart-looking flats now dominating the area.
What was interesting was an extract we were shown from a map of where the bombs landed in the Baedeker raids of 1942. The brewery, then Morgans, was damaged and so other breweries in Norwich and Eyres in Lynn on the Millfleet took up the slack until repairs were completed.
What I didn’t know was that one of the other big four Norwich breweries was close by straddling King Street. The Youngs, Crawshay and Youngs site occupied a huge area and the remains of one of the brewery walls, clearly identified on the historic photo provided, still remains, as does the metal gate with ornamental crowns on the top of the posts referencing the Crown brewery, its official name.
Some of the original building was incorporated into Wensum Lodge, now sadly lying empty and for sale. Once again, the area has been redeveloped and names such as Fuggles and Polypin Close bear testament to the rich history of the area.
We were also shown the war memorial honouring the employees of the brewery, removed from the offices and now erected halfway up a flight of steps leading up from King Street.
It was a fair walk to the next major brewery, but there was plenty of interest on the way. It is said that Norwich had a church for every week of the year and a pub for every day of the year, but this is something of an underestimate with 735 pubs and 43 beer shops recorded in 1859, and evidence can be seen everywhere.
Names such as Ship Close, paving stones incised with the details of nearby pubs, plaques on the wall and even the architecture of existing buildings all add to the picture. Close to the existing Steam Packet, the pavement records another former pub called the Steam Packet. The Norwich pubs website lists seven pubs with a variation of the name. Today there are around 10 in the whole country. Why the concentration in Norwich? No idea.
We walked on past the Last Pub Standing on King Street which may have to reconsider its name as a Belgian bar has just opened opposite, on past the Edith Cavell, the Louis Marchesi and Adam and Eve each with their own story. From there, it was across the river by the new footbridge close to the site of the Pockthorpe Brewery on the corner of Silver Street and Barrack Street, home of Steward and Patteson’s.
The old maps provided showed the huge area once covered by the various buildings and yards and it was possible to pick out some of the remaining repurposed brickwork. So, well done to our two guides from the Record Office with their expert explanations backed up by a wealth of documents. I look forward to another walk, perhaps taking in the Anchor Brewery, the other member of the big four. If my tour is half as good as this one, I will be well pleased.
bar.man@btinternet.com
